Flotsam with a Voice

Dear Mr. Flotsam,

I read your article, “Mueller answers the Nixon question for our generation: ‘Their president is a crook’,” with dripping disappointment.  Even though I suspect you may currently lack the capacity to process what I am about to say (because your newspaper bio claims you “hold nothing sacred,” to include, I infer, the truth), I will say it because I respect you as a fellow, and potentially undiscarded, human being.

The American public was duped, apparently well-beyond repair, regarding the Watergate scandal.  Recent revelations based on heretofore unavailable documentary evidence reveals Nixon was innocent of any criminal activity.  While Nixon was certainly guilty of unwitting complicity in the initial stages of the “cover-up” (thanks to John Dean’s masterful manipulation skills), he never willfully directed or engaged in illegal activity.  Moreover, he was the victim of a conspiracy via illegal ex parte meetings and carefully orchestrated news releases (fully documented) between the prosecution, judges, and the House Judiciary Committee in convicting Nixon in the court of public opinion.  Don’t take my word for it, read the very well-documented revelations in The Real Watergate Scandal by Geoff Shepard and The Silent Coup by Len Colodny.

Despite your incredibly disingenuous conclusions about the Mueller report, there was no crime committed by Trump.  Had there been a crime, an indictment would have followed.  The “alleged” crimes were (a) Russian collusion and (b) obstruction of an investigation into the crime of Russian collusion.  Mueller was explicit in his finding that there was no collusion.  Therefore, there was no crime (even though legal scholars say that “collusion” is not a crime).

 

The allegations of obstructing an investigation into an alleged crime that never happened is a little more technical.  Let me offer an example that you might understand.  If I accused you of being a child molester, and law enforcement authorities began an investigation, would you sit by silently and let the investigation proceed?  How would you respond when family members and friends are also implicated in the crime?  Now they find themselves lawyering up (at significant personal expense).  Now they also find aggressive prosecutors will pit family member against family member and friend against friend with the promise of leniency via plea bargaining?  Now they realize that when prosecutors find the slightest disagreement in the facts and circumstances they threaten a charge of perjury as additional leverage against family and friends?  Or, would you attempt in whatever manner possible to “influence” the investigation in the interest of obstructing injustice?

The Mueller report cites the following as one of six “Investigative and Evidentiary Considerations” to justify the allegation of “obstruction”:  “The President’s January 27, 2017 dinner with former FBI Director James Comey in which the President reportedly asked for Comey’s loyalty, one day after the White House had been briefed by the Department of Justice on contacts between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the Russian Ambassador;” (p. 12, Volume II).  Really?  Here are some thoughts:

·        The only way this piece of information was known was passed on by Comey.  Why?

·         What is wrong with wanting to know if one of the most powerful members of the federal government would be loyal to an incoming, constitutionally elected President?  Like him or not, Trump was legitimately elected President of the United States.  Political appointees, which Comey was, are expected to be loyal to the political agenda of an elected President. 

·         Yet, this was the first of six considerations expressed in the Mueller report.

The second consideration said:  “The President’s February 14, 2017 meeting with Comey in which the President reportedly asked Comey not to pursue an investigation of Flynn:”.  Here are more thoughts:

·         The precise language, according to Comey memos, was ““I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.   He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” (as cited in the LA Times).  The tone and message in the original communication are completely contrary to what the Mueller report claims.

·         As other sources establish, Flynn was “outed” through illegal unmasking of NSA intercepts.

·         As other sources establish, Flynn was set up when FBI officials visited him in the West Wing to discuss his communication with the Russian ambassador (with Flynn unaware of the illegal unmasking) and advised he did not need legal representation during the discussion.  This was a trap and led to Flynn pleading guilty of perjury only after going bankrupt due to legal expenses.

The third consideration:  “The President’s private requests to Comey to make public the fact that the President was not the subject of an FBI investigation and to lift what the President regarded as a cloud;”.  A couple thoughts:

·         If Comey had stated to the President that he was not under investigation, they why was Trump’s request to state this publicly obstruction of a non-existing investigation?  

·         Comey obviously could not respect the President’s request because as a disloyal subordinate in the Executive branch, he was fully aware that Trump was in fact the subject of illegal activity.  Comey was directly involved in using an unverified dossier, funded by a political opponent, to justify FISA warrants to place the Trump campaign under surveillance (the “spying” likely implied by Attorney General Barr in recent Congressional testimony).

The fourth consideration:  “The President’s outreach to the Director of National Intelligence and the Directors of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency about the FBI’s Russia investigation;”.  A couple thoughts:

·         For whom do these intelligence leaders work?  As Executive branch political appointees, they serve at the pleasure of the President.  The President has the constitutional and moral right to confront these individuals on this matter.

·         If, as Comey asserted to Trump, that he was not under investigation, then why would Trump’s outreach to these political appointees be considered obstruction?

The fifth consideration:  “The President’s stated rationales for terminating Comey on May 9, 2017, including statements that could reasonably be understood as acknowledging that the FBI’s Russia investigation was a factor in Comey’s termination;”.  Here are more thoughts:

·         Trump knew the Russia-collusion allegations were a hoax, as verified in part I of Mueller’s report.

·         As implied by the first two considerations above, Trump could not trust Comey.

·         Unfortunately, Comey’s loyal lieutenants engaged in activities that were clearly designed to undermine a constitutionally-elected President.

The final consideration:  “The President’s reported involvement in issuing a statement about the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and senior Trump Campaign officials that said the meeting was about adoption and omitted that the Russians had offered to provide the Trump Campaign with derogatory information about Hillary Clinton.”  A couple thoughts:

·         The meeting was unsolicited by the Trump campaign; derogatory information was in fact offered.  So what?  Representative Schiff has been recorded having a conversation with Russians offering derogatory information on President Trump.  Indications are that it was a hoax, but Schiff did not know this when encouraging the so-called Russians to share the information they were offering.  Isn’t all of this “small potatoes” compared with the Hillary Clinton/DNC funded dossier and its foreign sources?

·         The meeting actually was about adoption.  The Russian lawyer was lobbying members of the campaign to consider mollifying the impact of a previously enacted Magnitsky Act under the Obama administration—the Act, which barred numerous Russians from America, was in response to the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney employed by former American citizen Bill Browder.  For an intriguing story that led to this Act, read Bill Browder’s true story in Red Notice.  Browder can sympathize with Trump in this case because both were the target of derogatory propaganda by Fusion GPS.

 

Having said all of the above, Democrats will sustain an offensive for four main reasons:

·         Run out the clock under statute of limitations provisions to protect those who conspired to undermine President Trump.

·         Keep pressure on Trump via Congressional hearings to make him and any Republican supporters unattractive candidates going into the 2020 elections.

·         Maintain positive control of the public narrative, knowing they can count on a complicit, duplicitous, and mendacious main stream media who share the same progressive (shall we say socialist) agenda.

·         When indictments begin to surface from Attorney General Barr’s investigation into the “investigators” and Russian collusion hoax “perpetrators,” the Democrats will argue these actions are intended as political retribution despite actual, not merely “alleged,” illegal activity.

In closing, let us hope that the choir to whom you write is an outlier considering the broader population of America.  Many of us seek the "sacred" truth in the interest of justice.

Gadfly

Fellow Coloradoan

Are You Stupid or Smart?

by

Gadfly

            This essay was prompted by watching ABC News this evening, which clearly advanced a political perspective against President Trump.  As a retired American, I have the luxury of spending more time watching news presentations real time and to sample a range of news sources.  Thus, the ABC presentation was not only offensive, it was morally repulsive from a reasoned perspective.

The long-awaited Mueller report was released today.  If you believe it impugned President Trump, and you do not watch Fox News (likely because other news sources and friends admonish you not to) but get your news from other sources, then you may be stupid.  Sorry.  You might even be a friend of mine.  If so, here’s a news flash:  the truth may be painful, but it will set you free (assuming you are not mortally chained to your illusions, reinforced by propaganda outlets).

            How stupid can people be?  Let me give some examples (you won’t hear this from CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post—how do I know?  I looked for evidence and found none.):

·         The Trump Administration never fired Mueller. This would have been possible evidence of obstruction. 

·         Although Trump publicly expressed his frustration about the special prosecution (e.g., witch hunt), he was concerned about the injustice of the deep state and its attempt to undermine his legal presidency.  How would you, my friend, react to someone claiming you were a child molester when you are not?  Would you not protest?   Or would you wait until the witch hunt was over and you were spending time in prison because no one offered a case in your defense?

·         The Trump Administration provided 1.4 million pages of documents (transcriptions of ALL meetings held in the White House).

·         The Trump Administration never declared executive privilege, even knowing he made comments such as, “This is the end of my presidency," upon hearing that special counsel had been appointed despite no crime having been established.

·         The Trump Administration encouraged EVERY individual within the White House to be interviewed (under oath) by the Mueller team.

This entire nightmare began with an FBI counter-intelligence investigation (Who directed it?  Some suggest the direction came from the White House).  The “predicate” was a Russian dossier--since then discredited and characterized as a gross disinformation campaign purchased by a political opponent; and former FBI Director, National Intelligence Director Clapper, and Director of the CIA Brennan were the primary co-conspirators.  What is ironic is that National Security Advisor Susan Rice seemed compelled to memorialize a meeting in which President Obama encouraged the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to address the Trump campaign and its possible Russia collusion “by the book.”

So, there were two elements to the Mueller prosecution:  collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice in relation to collusion with Russia.  Mueller clearly and unequivocally determined there was no evidence of collusion with Russia.  Given this as a fact, then how is it possible to obstruct justice—that is, obstructing an investigation into a crime that never happened?  It doesn’t matter to Democrats.  It doesn’t matter that there was no collusion.  They are now going to seek an impeachment by claiming Trump tried to impede the investigation into a witch hunt, predicated by a manufactured crime (manufactured by Hillary and the DNC via the Russian dossier).

The Mueller expedition was merely a distraction from the real crime taking place in Washington.  The left wants to keep that distraction going.  Mueller did the best he could to advance the leftist cause.  His treatment of obstruction was clearly designed to give the rabid Democrats on the House Judiciary and other committees fodder to advance impeachment.  No doubt, the Democrat-controlled House will pursue this track.  And even though a Republican-controlled Senate will not legitimize the impeachment proceeding with a conviction, the damage will be done going into the 2020 elections.  By extending the Mueller prosecution beyond the 2016 midterm elections, the Democrats demonstrate there are enough stupid Americans to justify their strategy.

Don’t be fooled.  There is a fundamental distinction between legal crimes and political power.  President Trump did nothing illegal.  But his established agenda is to promote a Constitutional Republic and the rule of law—respecting the rights of Americans to make their own choices.  This is an egregious violation of the left’s progressive (socialist, communist, fascist) campaign for America.  Social justice can only be advanced by a political elite.  Equality (as defined by the political elite) is far more important than individual liberty.  Individuals, as the title for this article implies, are far too stupid to make their own choices.  Unfortunately, this may be true given that individuals have been guided as to news sources upon which they should rely.

Justice demands truth.  If one side of a contest for power is only focused on power, then the end justifies the means, regardless of the truth.  Social justice is the means to an outcome, and it can only justify a ruling elite regulating the ruled. The only real outcome in this situation is tyranny.  If the other side, on the other hand, is focused on the power of truth, then the means justify the end.  Justice, then, is THE outcome and is absolutely critical to a free society.

There is a political faction in America that completely disregards the legal election of a President.  This faction is hell-bent on usurping the power of this legitimately elected individual.

 

          NEWS FLASH and a cold bucket of water:  If you are stupid, you’ll imitate what you hear or read (CNN and MSNBC provide great soundbites).  This is consistent with F. A. Hayek's observation that the modern mind is a product of cultural evolution and more closely reflects imitation than reason.  If, on the other hand you are smart, you will triangulate news sources and reasonably challenge any faction's campaign to usurp a legally elected President so that you do not become one of “the ruled.”